Responding to the Call for Multi/Translingual Approaches to Writing Instruction: A Review of Recent Post-Secondary Translanguaging Studies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite increasing enrollments of foreign-born students in US community colleges, extant research on serving the needs of linguistic minority (LM) learners in higher education is decidedly scarce. When LM learners enter post-secondary settings, they simultaneously inherit the burden of securing the academic resources needed to navigate college coursework; within the post-secondary domain, this burden typically takes the form of required remediation classes. In the field of basic writing, scholars have already called for the implementation of multilingual or translingual approaches to address language differences. In response to these calls for multi/translingual approaches, this study considers the potential utility of translanguaging pedagogy in basic writing instruction, as an equitable means of assisting LM learners as they transition to community college settings. Two bodies of literature are evaluated: (1) research on LM learners and their transition to post-secondary settings; (2) research involving post-secondary translanguaging studies. Applying a theoretical lens informed by practice-based views toward bilingualism, this study identifies key components of post-secondary translanguaging studies that might be useful to the design of a future study involving community college LM learners in remedial writing classes.